


but charlie brown, it's thanksgiving!

by lovelyorbent



Series: they will know me by my teeth. [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: A fic I wrote by rolling a D12 on an options list, Butch/Femme, Comedy, Drunkenness, F/F, Jealousy, Poker, Thanksgiving, everyone also tells spike they'll kill her if she hurts buffy, everyone making fun of spike for being a heaux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:22:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27622666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyorbent/pseuds/lovelyorbent
Summary: “Should we do some sort of thankfulness thing around the table?” Tara asked, once the pie had disappeared. She was sounding a little more sober — at least not slurring anymore.“I think that’s a before-dinner thing,” Buffy said quickly.Willow was smiling at her girlfriend. “We could do it after. No rules.”“Hallie, you can sub yours out with the apology you owe Anya,” Dawn chirped.“Sorry I told you you have no other friends, Anya,” Halfrek said, sounding bored and rehearsed, like Willow had drilled this into her on the porch outside, which was more than possible. “I am actually your friend and I think you have many tolerable qualities.”
Relationships: Angel & Spike (BtVS), Spike & Dawn Summers, Spike/Buffy Summers
Series: they will know me by my teeth. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983988
Comments: 25
Kudos: 41





	but charlie brown, it's thanksgiving!

**Author's Note:**

> A very Buffy Thanksgiving mess featuring butch Spike.
> 
> Also, I've never seen ATS so it's very possible that some of this is just very out of character and bad. What you have to understand is that I don't care and did this mostly for my own amusement. I wrote this with a dnd roll table and a D12, which is how Tara ended up being the first person drunk.
> 
> Please enjoy this nonsense. Someone wanted butch Spike to interact with Giles, Angel, and Faith, so here it is.

Buffy fidgeted in the doorway of the crypt, which she had unceremoniously pushed open, leading Spike to tip her head backwards over the sofa to look at her as she entered. Her fingers were twiddling a stake, and Spike flashed her teeth at her. “Come to give us a good dusting, pet? Knew you’d be the death of me, but I was thinking more like the _petit_ kind.”

“The what?”

“French.”

Buffy waved her hand. “Maybe later.”

Spike snorted. Buffy wasn’t stupid by any means — she was creative, strategic, and was damn good with books, even, if she would just sit down and read any. But she _was_ exceptionally oblivious when she was distracted. And she was clearly distracted, teeth worrying at her sweet lower lip until it was swollen and red and so bloody kissable that Spike was going to get distracted too if the Slayer wasn’t careful.

“I have good news and bad news.”

“Always bad news first.”

Buffy’s lip was going to bleed if she kept doing that to it. Or, alternatively, Spike would _make_ it bleed. She licked her lips and watched Buffy shift, then narrowed her eyes, holding up a hand to stop her as she opened her mouth.

“Wait, wait, let me guess.” Spike put her index fingers against her temples and closed her eyes, affecting a look of deep, intent concentration. “You invited Peaches to Thanksgiving.”

The Slayer blinked, her wide green eyes looking surprised. “How did you — ”

“Vampire trade secret, Slayer.”

Buffy’s voice pitched upwards. “Can you _read his mind_?”

Spike held up her beer as if in toast, snickering at the horrified look on Buffy’s face. “Nah, he just called me. Don’t worry, he can’t tell when we’re shagging.”

“He _called_ you?”

“Wanted to know if I would behave myself if he showed.”

The pretty pink lip, bitten ragged, stuck out, and Buffy put her little hands on her hips, foot tapping as if she was angry. Her hip stuck out in the most enticing way when she did that. “That’s actually what I came over here to ask.”

“Did you ask _him_ that?”

“Yes, actually.”

“What did he say?”

“He said ‘did you ask her that?’”

Spike rolled her eyes. “Pretty sure I can play nice with the great poof for a couple of hours. But I’m not getting him a present. So hard to procure a sacrificial virgin on short notice.”

Buffy gave her a look that said that that was the sort of joke that fell into the category of _not behaving_. “Thanksgiving is _not_ a present holiday.” She looked adorable with her stern eyes and her arms crossed under her breasts, pushing them up in a way that she had to know was bloody distracting. Something about them looked a bit different, Spike thought, narrowing her eyes and looking closer. She broke the stare when Buffy cleared her throat. “ _Eyes_ , Spike.”

“Love, I’ve had both of those tits in my mouth, I don’t think a bit of ogling is going to defile them.”

The Slayer went pink. It was so cute how she could still be embarrassed, even though Spike had shagged her around the block several times. She put her foot down, the same determined look in her eyes she got before she killed something far bigger than she ought to be able to handle. “Well, you know what — Angel is coming and you don’t actually _get_ a say, you’re just going to behave or I’m going to — to — ”

“Stake me, chain me to a wall, make me wish I’d never crawled out of the bloody ground, yada yada. So what’s the good news?”

“The good news is that I thought you were going to be way madder about this, so I wore really nice underwear to make up for it.”

Spike grinned at her, and stripped her own shirt off over her head. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

The lingerie was red and shoved Buffy’s breasts up so high it was a wonder they’d ever fit into her shirt. Afterwards, they lay together, panting, Buffy draped over her chest on top of the sofa, Spike stroking through her tangled golden hair.

Her voice was smug. “Yep. Really nice.”

Buffy’s face was muffled in her neck. “Told you.”

Spike had, somewhat mistakenly, been present for Buffy’s first disastrous self-run Thanksgiving, and had off-and-on been aware of the catastrophes since. She didn’t understand the holiday herself — supposed that was the danger of being a Brit in the good old U.S. of A. — and she certainly didn’t bloody understand why her girl always worked herself up into a tizzy over it. This was the first time she had ever received an actual invitation, although admittedly it came with an all-access forced servitude pass to the kitchen after Buffy had learned that she was able to read a cookbook and follow directions.

Wasn’t that sodding hard to cook American food, she thought. Just dump a load of butter into it and do metric conversions because they did all their recipes up in Imperial like they thought they were so bloody special. Spike had grown up with Imperial, of course, but she’d converted like the rest of the civilized world sometime in the mid-1900s, while the states had elected to remain with one foot firmly stuck in the past.

“Willow and Tara are handling dessert,” the Chosen Girl herself said, breezing through in the same general bustle she had been in for almost a week. “Xander is picking up Giles at the airport — ”

“Hope Rupes is providing the alcohol,” Spike muttered.

“Actually, Angel said he’d bring wine.”

Well, that was a shit piece of luck. Spike’s grandsire didn’t actually eat food much unless he was trying to keep up appearances — joyless ponce — so he didn’t have the first clue what wine was good with what. He probably hadn’t had a bloody mashed potato in two hundred years. “One-stop shop for bleeding awful wine.”

“ _I_ am going to be keeping you and Angel from killing each other — ”

“ — and the Bit’ll be keeping _you_ from killing the Watcher — ”

“ — and we’ll all be keeping Anya from killing Xander.”

“Why’d you invite so many people who want to do each other in, Slayer?”

“Dawn wanted Giles, Willow wanted Anya, and I wanted Angel.” Spike did her best not to grind her teeth at that. She’d never had a girl, not really, whose first love wasn’t the great soulful Mick. There was something in Buffy that still loved him, and probably always would, and that was the sort of wound she had to soothe with the idea that, for now at least, Buffy was choosing _her_ , and not His Royal Broodiness. “The _real_ question,” Buffy continued, as if she didn’t know that Spike was biting her tongue on a caustic remark, “is why any of them even agreed to come.”

“Easy, love,” Spike told her, holding up a sage-covered knife. “All of them want to make you happy and they’re willing to be a bit uncomfortable for a few hours to make it happen. Not rocket science, that.”

Buffy tried not to look pleased and failed miserably. She had some sort of miserable hangup about admitting that this entire ragtag bunch of morons revolved around her like she was the sun, but she always looked visibly warmed when she was reminded of it. “I feel like I should make nametags for the seats so I can make sure no one sits next to the wrong person.”

“It’s not a bloody wedding, Slayer, just sit at the head of the table, put a couple of mugs of blood at the seats beside you and that’ll arrange the whole rest of the table to your liking.”

Dawn, of course, would claim the seat next to Spike, and would drag Giles with her. Willow wouldn’t want to sit next to or across from Giles or Angel, so she would take the other head of the table, and Anya would sit as far as possible from Xander, which would leave her next to Big Daddy Forehead himself. Spike was reasonably sure she was bringing along her demon friend as a buffer, which meant that Xander, who was still uncomfortable with demons, would end up sitting next to Giles with Tara across from him.

Buffy reached this conclusion about five minutes after Spike had and looked at her with narrowed eyes. “I hate that mind-reading thing you do.”

“Nah,” Spike told her. “Just solved your little problem, didn’t I? Everybody except me and Peaches’ll be at least two rotations from somebody they want to murder.”

“And you two — ”

“Will just play a bit of footsie under the table and be good little vampires.”

Buffy crossed her arms, still looking worried. “There is no way this doesn’t end in bloodshed.”

“Why don’t you set the table and let me worry about the bloodshed?”

“They’re not going to be here until six.”

“Not like the silver’s going to go bad while it’s sitting out. Also, hate to tell you, but somebody always arrives to these things three hours early.”

“It had better not be Giles,” Buffy groused.

“Give me a mo, kitten, and I’ll pop this bloody bird in the oven and give you a distraction.”

Willow walked in with her sleeves rolled up a few minutes later to see Buffy sitting on the counter, Spike wedged between her legs, hands up her shirt and mouth open against her throat. “Oh, god, sorry,” she squeaked, and fled.

Buffy smacked her in the forehead with the heel of her hand when she went back in for another kiss. “ _You_ heard her coming.”

“’course I did. Just didn’t care.”

“If that had been Dawn I would have _killed_ you.”

“Wasn’t,” Spike told her unrepentantly. “And it’s not like she’s never seen it before, she sneaks around trying to walk in on us all the bloody time.”

Buffy’s nose wrinkled adorably.

It ended up being Angel who arrived early, although, to his credit, it was more like one hour than three. It appeared to be intentional, since he turned up with a bird Spike hadn’t seen before, whose presence made Buffy stiffen and draw back, falling into a fighting stance. “Starting the festivities early,” Spike said cheerfully, and ushered the two of them inside. “Glad to see the Irish haven’t invented manners yet.” As the girl passed her, she caught the bite of _Slayer_ on her senses.

Huh. Spike looked her over, assessing her fluid motion as she walked into the Summers living room like she belonged there. Angel looked annoyed already, possibly at the jibe to his motherland, and Buffy was looking at him like she wanted to kill him, which warmed Spike’s cold, black little heart, really.

“Hanging out with vampires again, B?” said the girl, who had smooth dark hair and was dressed head to toe in leather. She was taller than Buffy — most girls were — but they had that same Slayer grace, catlike and predatory. Buffy’s always made her look noble. This girl’s was more like a falling knife blade that you wanted to get out of the way of. In the good old days, Spike would have creamed her bloody shorts to fight a girl like this. Now, she was a trained bloody circus animal, wearing a black apron instead of her leathers, hair curling slightly at her temples from the heat in the kitchen melting her hair wax. The girl held up her hands like Buffy had her at gunpoint. “I come in peace.”

“Angel, could I have a _moment_?” Buffy asked, so politely that she could only be restraining her urge to dust him by the thinnest possible thread.

The two of them disappeared out onto the porch, and the door slammed shut behind them.

The other Slayer looked her over like she was cataloguing every pore on her body, and then grinned, a low slow thing with a wicked curl. Spike felt more objectified than she had done since Buffy had stopped fucking her as an anti-depressant, but it was a good sort of objectification instead of a disheartening sort. “Suppose you’re Faith, then,” she said, fixing her with a grin of her own.

“We’ve met,” Faith told her, nodding.

“Yeah?”

“Told you I’d ride your face.”

Spike knew she probably looked gobsmacked, but in fairness to her, she was pretty sure she’d never forget a girl like this telling her a thing like that. Then it dawned on her, and she sighed, chuckling to herself. “ _Knew_ Buffy would never say that to me back then. Figured it was a spell or something.”

Faith waggled her eyebrows. The objectification rapidly turned into blatant eye-fucking. It wasn’t like Spike didn’t get this sort of thing from other birds sometimes, but, well. Couldn’t help but feel a little proud to get it from a Slayer. “Offer stands.”

“Sorry, pet, but I’ve already got a girl to ride my face.”

There was a bang on the door that was almost certainly Angel’s fist reminding her to be respectful. Faith cackled. “So how hard is B reaming him for bringing me?”

“Started out by telling him he should have called ahead and now she’s worked her way through calling him an inconsiderate bell-end. Doubt she even knows what that means. I’m rubbing off on her.”

“ _Yeah_ , you are,” Faith said, and licked her lips.

“ _Yeah_ , I am.” Another bang on the door. “Didn’t ask for your opinion, Miss Manners,” Spike called through the wood. “So why _did_ the inconsiderate bell-end bring you?”

“I’ve been wanting to come make peace for a while,” Faith told her, shrugging. “So I kicked on the puppy eyes and told him I was going to spend the holiday alone and he folded like a lawn chair.”

“That bag never used to work on him.”

Faith’s voice fairly dripped with sex. “Well, handsome, you’ve never seen my puppy eyes.”

“Let’s have a go, then.”

Faith’s face abruptly shifted from worldly and irreverent to an expression of such abject bravery and sorrow that Spike could see immediately how Angel would fall for it. It was a very _Buffy_ expression, the sort that said, _I am miserable but I will fight through it, you mustn’t help me, I am strong enough_. Spike wasn’t exactly so great at not falling for it herself. “Have fun in Sunnydale,” she said mournfully. “You know where I’ll be if there’s a disaster, I guess. Where I always am…” She sighed in the pause, eyes suddenly looking a thousand years old. “Alone.”

Spike snorted and turned to head upstairs. “I’ll get another chair.”

Willow was standing at the head of the stairs, staring at Faith with eyes like dinner platters. “ _Faith_?”

“Hey,” said Faith. “How’s it hanging? I hear this is clam-diving central these days.”

Willow went bright red and Spike slid past her on the stairs, only to get caught by one of the witch’s hands around her bicep. “Don’t _leave_!” she hissed. “I can’t do magic, remember?”

“Relax, Red, the Slayer and Angelus are right outside the door if she tries to get frisky with you.” She shook off Willow’s hand and headed for Dawn’s room to steal her desk chair. Buffy’s and Willow’s had already been pressed into service.

The Bit was sitting on the bed, cross-legged, painting her nails pink to match her shirt. Spike wasn’t sure why the hell they were getting dressed up to have dinner with each other, but Buffy had told her in no uncertain terms that she was to wear a button-down, and for the safety of her place in Buffy’s bed at the end of the night, she had complied. “Hey, niblet, just grabbing your chair.”

“Why?”

“Angel brought a girlfriend.”

Dawn sat up straight, nearly spilling the nail polish. “Oh my god, what a dick!”

“Faith, think you know her.”

“Oh my _god_!” Dawn said again. “Buffy is going to be so mad.”

“Ruins all her seating arrangements, yeah.”

“Not _that_.” Dawn sounded brilliantly scornful, and Spike, proud of her, grinned as she replied. “The fact that he brought someone else! And Faith! I mean, _Faith_!”

“Chit seems like good fun to me.”

“I’ve got to get downstairs or Buffy’s going to kill both of them,” Dawn said resolutely, and flounced out of the room, nails still wet.

Spike shrugged and grabbed the chair, tossing the piled-up sweaters on it onto Dawn’s bed, which would hopefully give her incentive to fold them and put them away. When she went back downstairs, Buffy and Angel were back on scene, Buffy looking like she was four seconds away from a mental breakdown and Angel, whose dark red shirt stretched annoyingly over his chest, looking sheepish. Dawn was glaring at him, which fairly gave Spike the warm fuzzies, and Faith was leaning against the bannister, yawning. The silence was yawning, too.

She cleared her throat and hit the bottom of the stairs, heading for the dining room. “Grandad, wine in the kitchen.” Angel disappeared in a flash, looking almost grateful.

“Where do I put the hard liquor?” asked Faith.

“Girl after my own heart,” Spike told her, and watched Buffy’s green eyes flash. “In me, I hope.”

“However you want it,” Faith purred.

Spike snickered, and Dawn punched her in the ribs. “Ow, Bit,” she said, as if it had actually hurt. Dawn, even at full strength, probably couldn’t put a dent in her unless she brought along a lead pipe.

Dawn gave her a look that could have cut glass. “ _Shut up_ , Spike.”

She glanced over at Buffy, who was nearly incandescent with rage. Usually, an expression like that on Buffy’s beautiful face — green eyes narrowed to firey slits, mouth drawn into a thin red line — would give her a good cocktail of heady fear of death and desperate arousal. In this case, however, it put a silly grin on her face. Buffy was _jealous_. That was _precious_. But if she didn’t want to be sleeping alone tonight, she’d better not wade too deep into it. She walked over to sling her arm around Buffy’s shoulder, which earned her a Slayer-elbow to the stomach. Well, that was all right. Work out a little of that frustration.

“Don’t you have cooking to be doing?” Buffy asked, voice frosty.

Faith laughed, and Spike took a sarcastic bow before she obeyed.

The kitchen was at half capacity. Willow, dressed in tan-checked slacks and a floral-patterned blouse, was making a piecrust at the island, Tara in a gauzy floor-length dress painted like the night sky next to her slivering apples. Angel, the bloody great coward, was leaning against the fridge, clearly listening to whatever was going on in the foyer. The witches were pointedly ignoring him. “Well met, prat,” Spike said to him as she hip-checked him away from the fridge so she could get at the cranberries.

Willow blinked when she tossed the bag onto the counter. “Wait, are you _making_ cranberry sauce?”

“It was on Buffy’s list.” Spike gestured with her elbow at the list, which was stuck to the fridge with a magnet that said in little red letters I BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS ME.

“Um, you’re supposed to get that out of a can, Spike,” Tara said. Spink blinked at her, not understanding what the fuck she was on about.

“It’s not the same without the little can ridges on it,” Willow explained.

Spike tossed her hands up. “This is what you all get for making a Brit cook Thanksgiving dinner. Don’t come crying to me when I overboil the bloody brussels sprouts.”

Willow looked horrified. “You’re _boiling_ brussels sprouts?”

“No!”

Tara grimaced, and held up her knife as if that were a gesture of peace. “It does smell really good?”

Spike rolled her eyes. “That’s garlic. Always does.”

“Garlic?” Angel said, raising one eyebrow.

“Just don’t eat it if you’re going to be a pussy,” Spike told him.

Tara’s nose wrinkled. “Aren’t vampires, you know — ?”

Spike shrugged. “Lightly allergic. Worth a little bit of the shits later, if you ask me.”

Angel shook his head. “I have to drive back to L.A. tonight.”

“All right, so avoid the turkey and the gravy.”

And the potatoes, but Angel didn’t have to know that. Laying a trap for an Irishman was easy that way. “I think I’ll just skip dinner.”

Damn it, he knew her too well to fall for that one. She shrugged one shoulder, unwilling to give the game away in case he changed his mind. “Joyless prick.”

He rolled his eyes. Willow and Tara looked away from them and Tara started cutting apples faster. Spike began tossing cranberries into the blender.

“Peaches, make yourself useful and zest this,” she said, and lobbed him an orange. He caught it just before it hit him in the chest and then, when she threw a paring knife at him, he caught it before it hit him in the face, glaring at her and licking his own palm to seal the cut that had opened there when he had taken it by the blade. “Wash your hands first,” she told him, when Willow and Tara both looked disgusted.

“I should have dusted you as a fledgling,” he muttered, and left the kitchen, abandoning the orange on the counter.

“Useless,” Spike sighed, and picked it up to do it herself, leaning backward against the counter and delicately separating the zest from the pith.

“You _did_ just throw a knife at him,” Willow pointed out, but she looked amused. Red got it, Spike thought with some satisfaction as she sheared off the peel and dropped it in slivers into the blender.

“Eh, we’re vampires. Throwing knives is like a hug hello.”

Tara raised an eyebrow. “I feel like _that’s_ not true.”

“Hey, dyke convention,” Faith said, walking into the kitchen. “Angel said it was knife-throwing time.”

Spike winged the knife at her and she ducked, pulling it out of the wall behind her and throwing it back almost too fast for the eye to see. It went straight through the center of Spike’s palm with a bright, stinging thud. “Ouch,” she said, and yanked it out, beginning to bleed on the floor. The witches were staring at them with matching horrified expressions on their faces, but Faith was laughing.

“Good catch,” she said, as Spike licked the blood off her own palm. “Hope it hurt.”

“Nothing a spot of blood won’t fix.”

Although it was going to ache like a bitch for a day at least.

“What is _wrong_ with you two?” Willow asked incredulously as Tara hurried over to examine the wound. The citrus wasn’t doing the pain any favors, so Spike chucked it, deciding that was enough peel.

“Hit the on button on that, will you, love?” she said to Faith, who did so with a look of extreme satisfaction on her face.

Dawn poked her head into the kitchen as it whirred on and wrinkled her nose at the blood on the floor. Tara was softly muttering over the cut. “Wow, do _not_ let Buffy see this. She’ll freak.”

“I smell Spike’s blood,” Angel called from the living room. Spike stiffened, but no response was forthcoming from Buffy.

“She went upstairs to get ready. And probably scream into her pillow,” Dawn explained. “Hey, are you _making_ cranberry sauce? That’s disgusting.”

“Well, _you_ do the cooking next time, Bit.”

Anya and her bloody friend — who Spike couldn’t help but think of as Cecily even when she showed up in her demon face — arrived next, Dawn letting them in. “Hey, you guys are early.”

“Only fifteen minutes. I wanted to be certain that I wouldn’t arrive at the same time as Xander so that we wouldn’t have to stand awkwardly on the porch together,” Anya told her matter-of-factly. Next to her, Halfrek, who was swathed in green, rolled her eyes. Some demons (see: Spike and Anya) retained the ability to remember roughly how normal human feelings worked when they went dark-side. Others (see: the other demons presently in the house) did not. Halfrek clearly didn’t understand why Anyanka would want to avoid her ex-fiancé, because she clearly thought that the girl should have gotten over it by now.

Spike, who couldn’t honestly say she was entirely over Cecily Addams, on the other hand, could sympathize. Add Dru and Buffy’s little toy soldier to the mix and they’d have three lovers here apiece.

Anya swept in and took a look at Spike in her apron and raised an eyebrow. “Is this a sexual fantasy of Buffy’s?”

Angel rumbled softly with annoyance behind her, and Spike was desperately tempted to say yes, except that she was already in enough trouble with Buffy already. “Oh. Nah, I was just cooking.” She reached behind her to undo the ties, and slipped it off, holding out her arms to display her midnight-blue button-down. Buffy-tested, Buffy-approved.

“Since Xander isn’t here to glare at us I will tell you that you look very nice,” Anya said. “And I think it is a waste of that apron if Buffy _doesn’t_ have a sexual fantasy about this.”

Spike took a half bow. “Figure I’d get a frillier one for that.”

“No.” Anya shook her head. “But one that was white. Part of the appeal is getting dirty.”

“I heard the door,” said Buffy, descending the stairs. “Hi, Anya. Hallie.”

She was wearing a sleeveless, shiny silver little number with her hair back in a complicated knot, two curls of gold framing her face. She looked bloody beautiful — she would look bloody beautiful in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt — and the rest of the world fell away. It was roughly what Spike imagined seeing your girl in her white dress at the end of the aisle would be, her breath catching in her throat as she looked at Buffy, and Buffy looked back, eyes fading from irritation to recognition as her cheeks went a little red.

Spike reached for her waist as she hit the bottom step, and then saw that she was wearing a little silver crucifix around her neck. She must have been angry when she got dressed — that meant hands-off if anything did, so she withdrew and settled for earnestly telling her, “You’re a vision, Buffy.”

That got her a blush in earnest, and Buffy brushed past her to go out into the living room. “Who wants something to drink?” she asked, plastering on her smile. Gorgeous but fake. Spike could tell from the scent of her that she was stressed.

She enlisted Angel to help her with the glasses, because of course she bloody did, Spike thought, looking evenly at him and not hissing even a little bit when he handed her a glass of wine. When Buffy reemerged, holding a coke for Dawn and two glasses of white in her other hand, the crucifix was gone from her throat. Usually, Spike would think that this was an indication that she was back in the game, but then again, Buffy had just been in the kitchen with Angel, who was also Christ-averse. So it might have been for him. _Prick_.

“Were you serious about the liquor?” She asked Faith, sotto voce.

A wide red grin. “As a stake to the heart.”

Spike bolted the wine back. “Fuck, yes. Hit me.”

Faith punched her in the ribs. If she were really trying, Spike would have gone flying — Slayer strength was a beautiful thing — but instead it just hurt like a bitch.

“Is she bothering you?” Angel asked.

“Yes,” Spike wheezed, while Faith smiled almost angelically and replied, “Nope.”

Her grandsire sat down at one side of the head of the table. “Good.”

Xander and Giles turned up at half past. Dawn, pouting, palmed Spike a five-dollar bill, and then went to go hug Giles at the door. Buffy stood up from the couch, face stony, but then, the second the Watcher smiled at her, the expression crumbled and she went running into his arms. Spike, who had fully expected that, looked around and saw Willow with her nose wrinkled, and Xander looking away like he was trying to give them some alone time. “Aw, the band is back together,” Faith said, sing-song.

“Faith?” Giles exclaimed, loosing Buffy from his arms and wrinkling his brow. “I didn’t know — ”

“That I was out of the clink?”

“That you would be here.”

If Spike wasn’t much mistaken, Anya was only refraining from hugging Giles herself because Halfrek would roll her eyes again. Well, old Spike could take care of that problem. “Hey, Hallie, let’s you and me go get the lads something to drink.”

“I admire your lack of jealousy,” Anya told Buffy instead of taking the opportunity Spike was holding out to her, and Spike swore under her breath.

“You _told_ _Anyanka_?” she hissed once they were around the corner and in the kitchen, and Cecily — Halfrek — shrugged one shoulder.

“I didn’t think she was still hanging out with this group.”

“Bloody hell. Girl can’t keep a secret.” It would be out by the end of the night, which meant it was time to start thinking about damage control. She poured the wine by herself and then knocked back another glass on her own. Halfrek was bloody well useless, gone the second Spike turned around to hand her a glass.

“Did you drug this?” Xander asked, when she returned to give him his. She rolled her eyes and handed the Watcher the other one.

“Nah. Poisoned it.”

The whelp snorted, and then raised the glass to his lips before his eyes widened. “Hey, wait, you _could_ do that.”

“Could also hire a hitman, get a shotgun, set up booby traps, burn down your house, cut your brakes.” Xander blinked and then put his drink down on the side table. Apparently, he had not realized that Spike had been killing people long enough to know how to do it without throwing a punch. Idiot. “Could do a bunch of other things too. See any bodies on the floor? No?”

“Spike — ” Buffy started.

Spike cut her off. “Dinner’s ready whenever you are.”

“I mean, I was going to tell you to stop harassing Xander, but sure.”

The seating strategy turned out to work approximately as well with an extra person — with Spike and Angel on either side of Buffy, Dawn and Faith fell into place beside each of them, which left Xander, Willow, and Halfrek next to Faith and Giles, Tara, and Anya on the other side. It put Willow a bit too close to Giles — she kept shooting him glances like she expected him to tell her off — and Xander looked deeply uncomfortable to be sitting next to Faith, but everyone else seemed happy enough.

Spike eyed the two of them, trying to figure out their beef, and noticed that Xander wouldn’t look Faith in the eye, whereas she seemed to barely notice him. Ha. That explained a lot. Bloody hell, this little group was incestuous. She snorted. “Show of hands, who’s laid one on Harris?”

Willow, Faith, and Anya all put their hands up.

Xander glared. “Show of hands, who _hasn’t_ slept with or been hit on by Spike?”

Willow’s was the only hand that stayed up, and Xander raised his. After a moment, Dawn and Tara joined them.

“Giles?” Xander asked, sounding horrified.

“I am _not_ participating in this,” Giles said, unfolding his napkin across his lap.

Willow wrinkled her brow. “Angel?”

In unison, both of the vampires muttered, “Don’t ask.”

Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. “Hallie?”

“That’s enough,” Spike broke in, standing up abruptly. She could tell she was going to be answering for that one for a long time from the look Buffy shot her. “I’m going to go get the food.”

“That’s right, run!” Harris called after her.

“I’m totally asking later,” Faith told them all.

The actual dinner food went off without a hitch, if Spike did say so herself. It wasn’t anything to write home about, to be sure — she hadn’t actually ever done much cooking except for making birds breakfast in the morning — but it tasted the way it was probably supposed to, because god damn it, Spike was perfectly good at following directions when she wanted to. Buffy’s main problem was improvising when she shouldn’t and losing focus in the middle.

The rest of it was, as could probably be expected with this lot, a hideous disaster. The wine had run dry in about fifteen minutes and Faith and Giles had both brought out hard liquor after everyone’s first round of food. All respect to Faith and all, but she’d bought jet fuel. And it wasn’t that Spike was above shit liquor, but when the type the old man had bought was on offer, she wouldn’t choose it willingly, and apparently neither would anyone else.

Tara had gotten giggly after about an hour, and Faith, who was downing her bottle alone, started to sprawl in her chair not long after, still perfectly coherent and graceful, but obviously feeling loose-limbed. Spike had had to stop Dawn nicking abandoned glasses of wine at least three times, and the fact that she smelled like Cab Sauv meant that even that hadn’t been enough. Angel, who was resolutely not eating, had still managed to slug back more than anyone other than Faith without so much as becoming one single whit more interesting. The only sign he was a bit done in was that when Spike asked if he wanted to chase squirrels in the backyard, he had looked like he was considering it for a moment.

All hell _really_ broke loose when Faith said, “I wish that — ” and everyone around the table started screaming.

She looked at them all like they were insane. “I was _going_ to say I wish I had another bottle, but fuck me.”

“Wish granted,” said Anya, swaying slightly in her seat. A bottle of Jack appeared in the center of the table, and Spike and Faith both crowed in victory.

“ _Anya_ ,” Halfrek scolded. “Where’s the justice in _that_?”

Anya’s lower lip stuck out, and she looked like she was about to cry. “I am a terrible vengeance demon.”

“You’re a vengeance demon again?” Giles said, sounding astonished.

She burst into tears. “Yes, because Xander left me at the altar and then I wanted to turn his body inside out. D’Hoffryn decided to give me another chance but I’m doing a _terrible_ job.”

Giles’ voice was faint as he took off his glasses to give them a good shine. “Oh, dear.”

Halfrek shrugged. “Your heart’s just not in it, honey. We can all tell.”

If it was possible, Anya’s face crumpled further. The hole where Spike’s soul was shouldn’t allow her to care about that, but, well, Anya was one of her own, and it didn’t hurt that she didn’t have any warm, fuzzy feelings towards her demon friend, either. “Can it, Cecily,” she told her, without thinking.

Angel’s eyebrows rose. “ _That’s_ Cecily?”

“I meant Hallie,” she said lamely. From the look on his face, Angel didn’t buy it.

“Yeah, _shut up_ , Hallie,” Tara echoed, slurring slightly. She pointed her finger at the demon, looking grim and determined. “You don’t have any right to criticize her.”

Willow’s mouth dropped open. “Oh no, baby, how much have you had?”

Tara shrugged, and Faith reached for the bottle of Jack and uncapped it, throwing back a mouthful and watching with bright, intent eyes. Halfrek was now glaring at the witches as if they were the ones who had wronged her.

“When were you going to mention that to Buffy?” Angel asked, as if Buffy weren’t _right there_ and listening to them. “Never?”

Spike bristled. Talk about not telling the girl things. “I don’t see how this is any of _your_ bloody business.”

“Seems like it’s mine, though,” Buffy said sweetly. The crucifix was back around her neck. Spike swore. "So, when were you going to tell me?"

“Didn’t think it mattered so much.”

Angel crossed his arms over his chest. The liquor was showing a little in that he wasn’t looking quite as docile as usual. “If it didn’t, why hide it?”

Spike rounded on him. “Still _none of your bloody business_ , _Liam_. Go back to getting sloshed.”

Buffy had leaned back in her chair and now held the air of an executioner considering how hard to bring down the axe. “No, he’s right. Why hide it?”

“Can we maybe not have this conversation _here_?”

“If you’re going to keep being a bitch to Anya, I’m going to need you to leave,” Willow was saying at the other end of the table, her Resolve Face reporting for duty.

“I’m not being a bitch. I’m her friend.” Halfrek raised her glass of wine, which she had been sipping since before dinner, looking cool. It was a look that was very much Cecily Addams. Very much too good for the lot of them. “I’m just telling the truth.”

“Yes, Willow, she is just telling the truth,” Anya said, sounding stricken. “D’Hoffryn is so disappointed in me. I am so disappointing.”

Willow reached across the table for her hand. “Oh, honey, no you’re not.”

Giles looked across the table at Xander, apparently having found his words again. “You _left_ a former _vengeance demon_ at the _altar_?”

“Why _can’t_ we have this conversation here?” asked Buffy. “Too many people here you’ve slept with?”

“Fuck’s sake.”

“I say, Xander, this last year has made me seriously question your judgement.”

“It’s not like I knew she was going to go all vengeance-y again!”

“She turned her last lover into a troll! It doesn’t take Nostradamus to think of the possibilities!”

“It’s not like I’m even good at vengeance anymore, so why do any of you care?”

“It’s true, all her other friends have left her.”

“Hey!”

“You great pillock, I’m going to tear that head off your shoulders.”

“Try it.”

“I’m sorry, are we measuring dicks now?”

A green flash.

“Oh, god, baby, what was that?”

“First Buffy’s resurrection and now — ”

“If you’d actually come to my wedding you would have already yelled at me about this!”

“That was a silencing spell —”

Dawn leapt to her feet and split the air with a shriek. “ _Everybody shut up_!”

Silence fell.

“You idiots are _not_ ruining Thanksgiving. You three — ” she pointed her pink-tipped fingers at Angel, Spike, and Buffy, “ — back porch — Angel and Spike can wrestle or whatever and Buffy can referee. I don’t care. Don’t come back until you can stop yelling at each other.”

“Bit — ”

“Dawn — ”

“Dawnie — ”

Dawn rounded on them, eyes bright and angry, voice thunderous. “ _No arguing_!” The three of them stood up in unison as Dawn turned back to the other end of the table. “Tara, Willow, and Hallie — front porch — get Tara to get rid of that silencing spell.” She fixed Halfrek with a look. “And _you_ come back with an apology for Anya or leave.”

Tara swayed when she stood, and Willow quickly got up to steady her. Halfrek looked mutinous, but followed them, probably mostly because she had no other option if she wanted to be able to speak again anytime soon.

Spike watched them go out the front and waited for Dawn to pronounce her verdict on Xander and the Watcher.

“You two,” she said, finally, pointing at them, “Just shut up.”

Spike snorted. Dawn whirled on her, eyes flashing.

“ _Get out_!”

“Well, this is going well,” Spike drawled, ambling out onto the porch and shaking a cigarette free of her pack. Buffy and Angel were both leaning against the railing, looking out at the dark garden.

“A classic Slayer family Thanksgiving,” Buffy muttered, looking annoyed. “I _so_ wanted it to work out this year.”

“It’s only eight,” Angel pointed out, checking his watch.

Spike took a drag. “Two whole hours of relative peace. Practically a record.”

Buffy snorted, and Spike decided to claim her traditional forfeit without any teeth, leaning forwards to brush a kiss over her girl’s forehead. She smelled like wine and fresh, clean sweat. “Get off me,” Buffy said, and pushed her backwards, but it was a soft shove and her tone wasn’t quite so angry as it had been. “Still mad at you.”

Angel made a low, irritated rumbling noise. “Why am I here?”

“Because I threatened to rip your head off.”

“You won’t.”

“Not tonight. Told the lady I’d give her a good holiday. And for some reason she likes that great fat head of yours attached to your shoulders.”

“Didn’t stop you throwing a knife at my face.”

Buffy punched her in the shoulder. “You _what_?”

“Snitch,” Spike grumbled, rubbing the bruised place.

“You threw a _knife_ at him?”

“Wasn’t like it was a _stake_. Besides, he caught it.”

“I can’t _believe_ you.”

Spike looked over at Angel. “I changed my mind, grandpa, I do want to have a bit of a go.”

“You’re going to have to go through me,” Buffy told her, eyes steely.

“Slayer, I love going through you, but I wasn’t serious.” She paused. “Hey, Peaches, I _was_ serious about those squirrels, though.”

Angel sighed, looking put-upon as if he hadn’t been dreaming about it. “Fine.”

“Ugh, gross. I am so not watching that.” Buffy headed for the door, but at the last moment, turned back to point accusingly at Spike. “And _you_ , we’re talking about Cecily later. When we’re alone. I _will_ punch you if you try to kiss me before that.”

“Welcome back to the world of the living, B!” Spike heard Faith say before the door closed behind her and left Spike and Angel alone on the porch in the night air.

Spike looked at his profile in the darkness, and then went down the porch steps, shifting her face to gain the even sharper hearing that the demon face afforded her. “Think all Slayers are firecrackers like that?”

“You’d know better than I would.”

“All four I’ve met have been.”

“Mm. Spike?” Angel was suddenly behind her, and if she didn’t have the little tingle of family awareness, she might have jumped when he put his hand on her shoulder. “If you so much as scratch her, I’ll dust you.”

“ _Way_ too late for that. She gives as good as she gets, anyhow.”

“Don’t talk about her like that.”

“She’s not the sodding virgin Mary, you prick. Know she was the last time you had her, but she’s a woman now, not a little girl.”

“She wasn’t a little girl when I — ”

“Slayers never are. Wasn’t exactly not, though, either.”

They glared at each other in the silence, two pairs of golden eyes glinting in the dark. “I’m serious,” Angel finally said. “She’s not Dru. She’s not going to keep bouncing back forever. She’s human. She breaks. And she’s — important. To the world. To me. And if you break her, I’ll break you. That isn’t a threat, Wilhelmina, it’s a promise.”

It was. He said it in the final, authoritative tone that Angelus had always reserved for his most serious instructions. His expression was cold and still, and while Spike knew that, in the end, they didn’t _actually_ hate each other, the expression on his face would fool most people. For once, he looked like a vampire. “Yeah,” she said, slowly. “She’s not Dru. She’s stronger’n Dru was. Stronger’n any girl I’ve ever known. But if I break her, you’ll have to get in the line to dust me. I’m first. Think then Niblet, Red, Harris, and all the rest of them. She’s got plenty of people who love her who’ll scream for my blood if I so much as give her one bad day.”

“You’re not good for her.”

“I’m a sight better than you were, seeing as I didn’t lose my soul and go ‘round the bend the first time I shagged her.”

Angel’s jaw tightened. “Because you don’t _have_ a soul.”

“Yeah. I don’t. But I’m not who I used to be, either. Think Bloody Will would’ve let a Slayer run around this long under her nose? And don’t say it’s the benefits, either. I wouldn’t. Not this girl. I love her. I’m better because of her.”

“If it were up to me — ”

“Bloody good job it’s not, then, isn’t it?”

“If it were,” Angel continued, as if he couldn’t hear her. “If it were, Spike, I wouldn’t pick you. I’d pick someone normal. Someone who can give her what she deserves, instead of just keeping her in the dark.”

“When you say _normal_ what you mean is you don’t want her to pick anyone. _Normal_ doesn’t survive around the Slayer. Just look at all those bloody Scoobies. Not a one of them’s still normal.”

“None of them are soulless demons.”

Spike snorted. “Well, a couple are. Demons at least.”

“Your soul is important.”

“ _Your_ soul is important. I’m perfectly well up to not murdering all her friends and family without one. Want the girl to be happy.”

Angel looked vaguely uncomfortable for a moment. And, well, Spike could see why. The happiness of his lovers had never been a priority for Angelus — really, the opposite had been. Soullessness predisposed you to want to be the only thing in your girl’s life, but Angelus had always taken it especially far even for a vampire. That Spike could sit by and let Buffy have friends, particularly friends who hated her and would like nothing better than to create a Spike-sized hole in the girl’s life, must seem a somewhat foreign concept to the demon clawing at that pretty shiny soul of his. “And if she’s not happy?”

“I’ll make her happy. If that means walking into the sunlight, I’ll do it with a smile, mate.”

Her grandsire narrowed his eyes, and the two of them engaged in a little staring contest, demons straining to get at one another while both of their bodies stood dead still. Finally, Angel sighed. “Let’s go back. I’m not actually interested in squirrels.”

When they reached the backdoor, having walked out down Revello Drive and back, Angel stopped her with her hand on the knob.

“Wait. Don’t you want to hear what they’re saying?”

Spike paused. She wasn’t a hundred percent the peeping Tom type, not the way Angel was, but the idea was tempting. “Yeah, all right. But you’re a creep, mate.”

“You’re here too.”

“ _I’m_ evil and soulless, remember? You haven’t got the excuse.”

They stood outside the door. The sounds of laughter came from within, Buffy’s familiar giggles interspersed with Faith’s sniggering and a high, hysterical sound that both of them frowned to recognize as Giles. Buffy was speaking, sentences broken hard over her mirth. “And then — and then — there were _four_ — four! — ”

“Dear lord,” said Giles, voice stretched in a way that sounded like he was wiping tears away from the corners of his eyes.

“And Anya said — ”

Another gale of laughter. “I suddenly feel extremely fortunate that I wasn’t here for that,” Giles wheezed.

“Three sheets to the bloody wind,” Spike muttered, and Angel raised an eyebrow but didn’t disagree.

When they reentered, Dawn looked them over searchingly, and seemed to find them acceptable. The Slayers and their Watcher were still giggling, Buffy now sitting in the seat to Giles’ right and leaning helplessly against his shoulder, and Faith having shifted a seat down to sit across the table from them, one hand still wrapped around the bottle of shit liquor she’d come with.

Spike decided against being clingy and sat down in the seat she’d vacated, next to Dawn, who lifted her eyebrows and fixed her with a Look that was so reminiscent of the one Joyce had worn when she’d hit her with the axe that Spike had to reach out and ruffle her hair. “Good job, Bit,” she said, and Dawn grinned.

“You were all being dumbasses,” she replied blithely, as if it were nothing to whip four demons, two Slayers, two witches, and a couple of idiot human men into submission. Buffy herself didn’t have that experience — she’d never had to deal with the hardheadedness of two bloody Slayers at once. “And I got sick of listening to you.”

“So, witches haven’t come back?”

“I did hear Willow yelling a couple of minutes back,” Dawn told her. “I think they’re having trouble with the spell. Probably because Tara is all… drunk.”

“And where are Anyanka and her little boytoy?”

Silence fell at the table, and then the four humans burst into laughter again. “They’re totally making out in the other room,” Faith managed.

“They are not,” Dawn insisted. “They just went to go talk — ”

“Oh, no,” Giles told her, laying a hand on her shoulder and breaking into another chortle. “I’m afraid Faith is right.”

Buffy gaped. “Giles!”

“I was young once and that look in their eyes — ”

Buffy reached out to put her hand over his mouth, still laughing. “No, no, I already know too much about when you were young.”

Well, this wasn’t going to go badly at all. If Harris had taken issue with Anya being an ex-vengeance demon, being the genuine article was obviously going to be worse. And Anya had been fairly firm in dumping him, which was well bloody deserved if you asked Spike. But, well, it wasn’t any of her business. And if Harris got a little hurt, well, it served him right.

It was Anya who was likely to feel it, though. Well, still not her business.

“Mazel tov,” she said, raising her glass of whiskey and slamming it back. Faith refilled it almost immediately. “They’re gonna regret that in the morning.”

“We are _not_ going to let them go home together,” Buffy told them all firmly, but her mouth was still twitching.

Faith shrugged, leaning back against the chair with her foot up on the table, oblivious to the look Buffy was giving it. “Why not? They’re big kids.”

“Because I do not want to get a call from Xander at ten tomorrow morning freaking out because he woke up in a demon den.”

Spike shrugged. “She lives in a flat downtown, actually.”

Dawn’s nose wrinkled. She looked exactly like Buffy when she was confused, and Spike had to raise her glass to her lips to avoid a smile. “How do you know that?”

“I know where all of you live.”

“Basic reconnaissance,” Angel said casually.

“Yeah, what he said.”

“Vampires are so creepy,” Buffy muttered, and everyone looked at her with skepticism written all over their faces.

Faith was the only one who actually said it. “Is that why you keep fucking them?”

The reactions from around the table ranged from snorting (Spike) to a baleful glare (Angel). Buffy herself just rolled her eyes.

“What? I’m just asking.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow, looking coolly at her. “Do you want an actual answer?”

Spike and Faith both nodded. Everyone else, at varying volumes, gave an emphatic denial. Faith, who was making herself more relatable to Spike all the time, grinned widely.

“Playing chicken with me, B? You really have grown.”

“Dying will do that to a girl.”

“So will a good sh — ”

Angel and Buffy both leaned forward to fix her with a look. “ _Shut up_ , Spike.”

Xander and Anya came back into the room hand in hand. Her eyes were bright and she was wearing her slightly too-wide smile, and he looked classic Harris dopey drunk. Faith started applauding as they came in, and Angel took another drink of whiskey. Wonderful, thought Spike. The great Irish lush was going to end up sleeping in the bloody basement.

“Hey, guys,” Xander said, looking awkward.

“You’ve got lipstick on your neck, mate.”

“Oh. Xander, let me get that,” Anya said, and kissed him on the neck again, then started giggling, hanging on his arm. “Sorry.”

The two of them took the only two immediately adjacent seats at the table, Anya between Xander and Faith with a little glance at her as if she were perceiving a threat. Which, all right, was fair — Faith was a threat all over. If Spike wasn’t thoroughly taken, devotedly monogamous, and in possession of a functional survival instinct, she’d be begging for a taste of that. “So, is this back on?” Dawn asked, characteristically blunt. Spike elbowed her so gently she probably hardly felt it.

“Yes,” said Xander.

“Maybe,” said Anya.

“Oh boy,” said Dawn.

Xander turned to his his ex. “ _Maybe_?”

Her voice was airy when she replied, her words seeming a little hollow when she was leaning against his shoulder like that. “Yes, Xander, maybe. I am aroused but I have not forgiven you.”

“This seems like an after-dinner talk,” Buffy cut in quickly. “And maybe a not-in-my-house talk.”

The boy wasn’t listening to her. “I thought — ”

“Xander, it was just a kiss and I am very drunk.”

“It was like ten kisses!”

“It was thirteen, actually.”

Spike snorted. “Ah, I remember being in the counting stage of the relationship.”

Buffy leaned forward to point her finger at her. “Spike, do not say another word.”

“What, you don’t want to hear how many times we — ”

“No,” Angel said loudly. Spike snickered.

Buffy was still leaning forward. It made her breasts look absolutely devastating, sweet little peaks pressing up against the silver fabric. “Dawn, punch her in the arm for me.”

Dawn did. It barely hurt, but Spike rubbed the spot anyway, to make Dawn feel accomplished.

“That _meant_ something to me,” Xander was saying, ignoring the scuffling on the other side of the table.

“Don’t be such a girl, Harris,” Spike told him, and kicked him under the table, only hard enough to make her wince when the chip shocked her. The night was already ruined enough for Buffy’s perfect holiday imagination without the little wedding drama replaying itself.

“That is very misogynistic of you, Spike,” said Anya.

“I prefer my ritual sacrifices without all the complaining, that’s all.”

Anya lit up. “I keep _telling_ them it’s a ritual sacrifice!”

“Well, what else would it be?”

Dawn punched her again, and this time Spike didn’t pretend to be wounded. “A _holiday_?”

She shrugged. “Can be both.”

Harris had stopped trying to talk about the kiss and was instead sitting there looking troubled. Anya, for her part, was looking warm again, if still fairly drunk. “Thank you, Spike.”

Spike took a seated bow just as the door opened and the witches came in off the porch, Halfrek in tow. She looked torn between being annoyed and being bored, which was a look that, while it was appearing on the vengeance demon’s furrowed features, somehow reminded Spike so strongly of Cecily that she had to grin. Tara and Willow took the seats at the end of the table by Angel and Buffy, which left Halfrek moving towards the head of the table next to Spike before Buffy stood up and said, “Wait. Willow, switch with Hallie.”

Willow blinked. “Why?”

“That’ll be me in the doghouse, Red,” Spike told her, raising a hand. Willow hopped up and obligingly moved over, seating herself between Xander and Spike and leaving Hallie to retreat to the seat next to Buffy.

The witch leaned slightly closer to her and whispered. “Why are you in the doghouse and what does it have to do with Halfrek?”

“Cec — Hallie and I have a history.”

“So there is literally no one here you haven’t slept with,” Xander said, at full volume.

“Except the men and lesbians,” Anya piped up. “Which is actually odd, now that I think about it. The lesbian part, I mean.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Also, Faith and I are _still_ here.”

“Spike isn’t my type,” Tara said matter-of-factly.

Spike sat back in her chair and smirked. “Nah, you like a little sweetness in your girl. All self-effacing and goody two-shoes. Little spice, too, though, or it gets boring. Like a little temper and won’t admit it.”

Tara started giggling.

“Oh, mind-reading hour. Do me and Xander next,” Willow said. “What’s our types?”

“You like all sweetness. A girl who supports you, almost no matter what stupid thing you do. He,” Spike grinned, looking Xander directly in the eye, “likes a woman who can put him in his place.”

Willow looked at Anya, then at Faith, then at Buffy. “Uh huh. That checks out.”

“That’s cheating,” Dawn told her. “Their girlfriends are all sitting right here and you can just describe them.”

“Spike is not doing tricks for you,” Buffy said, her voice in the tone that Spike had once heard Xander refer to as _finality girl_. “Partly because it’s dessert time and partly because if you keep going it’s going to turn into another fistfight.”

Willow popped up. She was awfully perky when she was tipsy. “Dawn, come help me with the ice cream.”

“I’m just saying, it’d be more impressive if you did it with a stranger.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Niblet, if I ever need to impress you.”

“Should we do some sort of thankfulness thing around the table?” Tara asked, once the pie had disappeared. She was sounding a little more sober — at least not slurring anymore.

“I think that’s a before-dinner thing,” Buffy said quickly.

Willow was smiling at her girlfriend. “We could do it after. No rules.”

“Hallie, you can sub yours out with the apology you owe Anya,” Dawn chirped.

“Sorry I told you you have no other friends, Anya,” Halfrek said, sounding bored and rehearsed, like Willow had drilled this into her on the porch outside, which was more than possible. “I am actually your friend and I think you have many tolerable qualities.”

Spike doubted that was the line. But at least it put Angel next. There was silence while they all waited for him to speak. “Don’t bitch out, Angel,” Faith finally said.

“Can this entire side of the table plead non-American?” Giles asked.

The fact that Buffy didn’t immediately object to that on principle meant that she definitely didn’t want to participate in this little ritual.

“No,” said Dawn. “I’m here too. Also Buffy. So Angel, don’t be a buzzkill or I will put you back out on the porch.”

“He used to eat little girls like you for breakfast,” Spike muttered.

“I’m thankful to have been invited,” Angel finally said, which was a tremendous copout.

Everyone’s eyes moved to Buffy, and Spike wished that she could slip a hand under the table to hold her girl’s. If she could see her face, she could suss out what had her all reluctant, but from here, she was just guessing. Finally, Buffy said something, her voice too small for anyone but the vampires to hear. “I’m thankful to be alive.”

Spike could have wept to hear it. She had an uncontrollable urge to race to Buffy’s chair, tip it back, and kiss her senseless. Angel had clearly straightened in his own seat and gone stone-still. She could feel his tension, years under her belt of being attuned to his feelings, particularly this one. “What was that, Buff?” Xander asked. “Sorry, you were a little quiet there.”

She could hear the little false smile in Buffy’s voice when she replied. “I said I’m thankful for this pie.”

Xander sighed. “Damn it, that was mine.”

“I am thankful to be able to see most of you again with the excuse of this fine holiday for which I do _not_ have to do the dishes,” Giles said, apparently rushing to get it over with.

“ _Most_ of us?” Anya asked, frowning.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever met your friend before,” Giles told her diplomatically, even though Spike was fairly certain he didn’t want any vampires here either. She also noted that he didn’t add a gentlemanly _but I’m pleased to make her acquaintance_. “I certainly didn’t mean to make you feel left out, Anya.”

Anya nodded, satisfied. “Okay.”

Dawn raised her hand. “I’m thankful that Giles showed up from England and that Buffy’s not dead and that no one here is evil or in chains. And also that Tara and Willow are back together. And also that no one has died tonight.”

Spike turned to her. “Excuse me, I am kind of evil here.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Yesterday I heard you singing a Queen song in the shower.”

“Could’ve been Killer Queen.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Also, I totally walked in on you reading Dawn’s English assignment to her out loud last week,” Buffy put in.

“Shakespeare isn’t meant to be _read on the page_!”

Willow grinned. “And you cooked dinner because Buffy told you to.”

“Well, I didn’t say I wasn’t pussy-whipped.”

“Is it now make-fun-of-Spike hour?” Xander asked. “Because I have a lot of material.”

“I’ve seen your dick,” Spike told him, which had never failed to make any man of her acquaintance shut up. “Don’t know if I’d be laughing if I were you.”

Xander kicked her in the shin. She smiled at him. “I’m thankful that every single bloody person at this table took the time out to tell me that the cranberry sauce was shit but not one of you bought a can of it like you apparently wanted.”

Giles frowned. “I thought it was fine.”

“Spike, that is not thankful,” Dawn said.

“I’m thankful that Joyce’s oven properly — ”

“Just say what you actually want to say,” interrupted Angel, voice gruff.

Spike cleared her throat. He knew her a little too well to fall for it if she played dumb. She hadn’t suddenly turned off the desire to be effusively worshipful of her girl when Dru had left her. “ — I’m thankful that Buffy chooses me every day.”

There was momentary silence at the table, Angel’s annoyance bleeding through the air along with Buffy’s blush. The phrasing probably sounded to the two of them like Buffy was picking between them — choosing the grandchilde over the grandsire — but in reality, Spike meant it in the most literal sense. Every day, the warrior for the forces of good rolled out of her sweet, girly little bed, and she chose all over again to put herself in the arms of a creature of the night who couldn’t hope to deserve her. It didn’t have a bleeding thing to do with Angel. It was all about Buffy giving her a chance. Giving her a chance every day.

“That’s so cute,” Dawn told her.

“You take that back,” Spike said, and went to tickle her. “I am not sodding cute.”

Anya shook her head. “Actually, that was very cute.”

Spike raised her eyebrow as Dawn socked her in the gut to try to get her to stop. “ _Et tu, Brute_?”

“It’s the truth,” said Anya defiantly.

“We’ve all had kind of a hard year, and I’m thankful that we’re all still here,” said Willow, although she didn’t quite look at Buffy when she said it. “And that Buffy got me help when I needed it.”

“And I am also thankful that Buffy got you help when you needed it,” said Xander. “And that Anya gave me a maybe and not a no.”

Spike winced. Way to push the girl. Then again, she wasn’t exactly one to talk. She’d begged Buffy on her knees for another chance. And Anya didn’t seem at all uncomfortable with it, although the amount of liquor she still had in her might be the cause of that.

“I am thankful that Giles finally left the Magic Box in my care,” she said, and then looked at Giles. “No offense. But I do enjoy working in retail and I am better at it than you were.”

Faith’s lounge looked a little more practiced and a little less casual, all of a sudden. Spike half-smirked, noticing the tension in the lines of her body as she smiled and tried for a joke. “I’m thankful B didn’t stab me again when I showed up.”

Well, not all opportunities to be evil were big ones. “If I didn’t get away with cranberry sauce you’re not getting away with that.”

The Slayer’s eyes turned to her, sharp and deadly. It sent a little chill running down Spike’s spine, not of arousal but the instinctual vampiric reaction to the murderous gaze of their natural predator. Her voice went all fine and melodic, which Spike clocked as probably the last thing that a lot of vamps had heard before they had exploded in a little dust cloud. “Fine. I’m thankful for the fact that Angel can’t drive home right now, so I’m going to get to have some Hellmouth-style fun tonight.”

Buffy frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’re pretty drunk — I mean — ”

Spike shrugged. “I could go with. I fight drunk all the time.”

The concerned look on Buffy’s face faded immediately. Jealousy was such a good look on her, Spike thought wistfully. Made a lady feel wanted. “Actually, Faith, have fun.”

“Bit of a scrap might sober Peaches up,” she suggested instead. If Angel could look at her without standing up or leaning a foot forwards, she was fairly sure he would be giving her the sort of look which typically preceded Angelus chaining her to the wall and punishing her for lack of subtlety.

“Okay, no. No Slaying while everyone is all hammered,” Buffy said firmly. “Unless a situation of the hairy variety starts going down, then maybe a _little_ Slaying.”

Faith groaned. “What are you going to do, chain me in the basement?”

“My house, my rules.”

“I’m kind of rules-challenged.”

Giles cut in. “Yes, everyone here is. Tara, would you like to round us out before this becomes another fight?”

Tara raised her glass. “I’m thankful that we’re all here together and mostly okay, even though it’s been such a tough year. There were, um, a lot of times when I didn’t think that was going to be true.”

From the scent of salt that suddenly introduced itself in the air around her, Spike was fairly sure that Willow and Dawn were tearing up.

When dinner was over, the original Scoobies trooped over to the living room to turn on A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, Giles under protest that he quelled as soon as he realized that neither of the vampires were following them to the couch. Anya followed to sit on Xander’s lap, and Willow leaned against his shoulder, sandwiched between him and Buffy with Tara sitting on the floor in front of her, head resting against her knees. The lot of them really were like cuddly little puppies, Spike thought, and then kicked herself for thinking it. Very un-evil thought. Not very Big Bad-befitting. But it was hard to suppress it when they were all curled up together, six to a three-person seat.

“Ugh, baby stuff,” Dawn groaned, as if she hadn’t watched this exact movie with Spike in her crypt two days earlier. “Who wants to play poker?”

Spike grinned and stood up, going to the hall to fish a pack of cards out of her coat pocket, which she tossed to Dawn to deal. “Liam, let’s indulge the girl. See what she’s learned.”

Angel, who had stopped drinking when patrol had been mentioned, tipped his head in agreement and slipped off his chair to join Dawn where she had dropped to sit cross-legged on the floor.

“Deal me in,” said Faith, and dropped to the floor beside Spike.

Halfrek’s face appeared over Angel’s shoulder, looking curiously at the cards Dawn was dealing out. “Is this anything like whist?”

Spike snorted. “Why don’t you watch a couple of rounds before we deal you in.”

Dawn won the first round. Faith won the second in a nail-biter. In the third round, Spike suggested they play for stakes and then promptly cleaned all three of them out, collecting a pile of nickels from the ante. Halfrek kept accidentally sabotaging Angel by revealing what cards he was holding, which Spike found hysterical and Angel clearly found tiresome. When she poked her head up to check on Buffy, she found her sound asleep on Giles’ shoulder, Willow and Xander equally passed out beside her. Definitely like a little puppy pile.

“So that’s two pair, is that right?” Halfrek asked, and Angel sighed.

Spike was having a difficult time restraining her delight. “You used to be good at this game, gramps.”

“That was when I cheated.”

Faith gave him a huge grin. “Might as well, the rest of us are.” She held up a card and waggled her eyebrows at Spike. “You think I wouldn’t notice these are marked?”

“That’s the ace of spades,” Spike told her, blasé.

“And mini-B here is dealing from the bottom of the deck.”

“And let me guess, pet, you’re hiding cards up your sleeve.”

Faith shook out her left arm and another ace popped out of nowhere.

Spike went to get Joyce’s deck for the next round, now that the cat was out of the bag, and Halfrek dealt the cards, since she was probably the most impartial player there, feeling equally little emotion for each of them. It also kept her from staring straight over Angel’s shoulder, which was good, because while she had been dealing, Spike had looked across the circle at him and raised one eyebrow. She had gotten a twitch of Angel’s lips in return.

She played soft on him. When they had done this back in the day, it had usually been the other way around, since she had been the one people overlooked and didn’t respect. Now, with a three-game losing streak under his belt, they had silently and mutually agreed that the reverse, in this specific case, was true.

Angel won the next game. And the next. The two of them remained completely impassive while Dawn began to get frustrated. Faith seemed unfazed. She had suggested strip poker, and presumably didn’t care about the new stakes.

“Are you cheating _now_?” Dawn asked him, when he won his third game.

Angel looked her dead in the eye and said, “No.”

It was technically true, in that the only thing he was doing was taking the opportunities Spike was handing to him.

As the credits on the movie began to play, and the sound of Scoobies stirring came from behind them, Halfrek, entirely by chance, dealt Spike the makings of a royal flush. Dawn was staring at all of their faces, because the eyes were where Spike had told her all the best tells were, so she didn’t try to give Angel a look. Instead she tapped the ball of her thumb softly against the cards, 1-2-3, too quiet for human ears to hear, meeting Dawn’s gaze steadily until the girl flicked it over to Faith. There was no way to tell if Angel had gotten the signal, at least until play started.

When Spike had the flush, she tapped the cards again, and on Angel’s next turn, he anted up dramatically. Faith swore, and matched. “If you win four times in a row you really are cheating.”

Dawn was forced to throw in everything she had to remain in, and then Angel folded. Faith’s eyes lit up and she started cackling, at the same time Dawn shrieked with annoyance.

Faith threw down her cards, apparently knowing the jig was up. Spike bet again, and then looked at Dawn with a smile.

Her nose wrinkled. “ _Fine_ , I call. Whatever.”

Spike laid down the flush. Dawn slapped her cards down and responded to her wide grin with a glower. Spike reached over to ruffle her hair. “Full house, pet. Not bad.”

“Buffy, can you come stake these vampires for me?” Dawn called.

Faith produced a stake and held it out across the pot. “Pff. Be a man, do it yourself.”

“What did they do?” Buffy asked, sitting on the weapons chest behind Spike. “Also, no staking in the house. I just vacuumed.”

“Actually, _Tara_ just vacuumed,” Willow pointed out.

“Okay, well, still no staking in the house.”

Spike let her fangs flicker when she smiled at Dawn again. “You want to take this outside, Bit? I’ll help you take him down first. Temporary truce, same as I offered your sister.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Stop trying to kill Angel.”

“Anyone named Summers asks and I’m there.” Spike divided the pot and pushed half towards Angel.

Angel obligingly split his own winnings in half and returned the favor. “Me too.”

“To stake yourself?”

“To stake _you_.”

Tara passing out on the floor ended the night. Willow press-ganged Xander into carrying her upstairs to bed, and Spike bailed him out when he looked like he was teetering on the bottom step. When she came back downstairs, Anya and Halfrek had already left, and Xander was sitting on the couch looking bereft. Buffy was sitting with him, arm around his shoulders, murmuring to him about how this wasn’t the end of the line.

“You’re going to want to leave by six to get back to LA without going all crispy,” Spike told Angel. “Where’s the spare Slayer?”

“Slaying,” Angel told her, waving his hand. “Can’t stop her.”

“Chains might work.”

Angel rolled his eyes.

When Xander left, still looking dejected, Buffy offered Angel the basement, since Giles had claim on the couch already, hugged both of them, and then headed for the stairs. When Spike rose to her feet to follow, Giles raised a staying hand. “Spike, if I could have a moment with you, there’s a question I’ve been unable to solve with research that I think you may be able to answer.”

The Ripper-ish look in Giles’ eye made her think that was probably bullshit, but she shrugged a shoulder and said, “Sure.” She looked over at Buffy and smiled at her. “I’ll come up later, love, say good night before I head home.”

“Uh huh,” Dawn muttered. “’Head home.’ I’ve heard that one before. And then _heard_ it. Through the _walls_.”

Buffy cleared her throat, going bright red.

“Feels like it’s past your bedtime, Bit,” Spike said.

“Heard that one too.”

“Dawn,” Buffy told her warningly, and Dawn rolled her eyes and disappeared. Buffy followed her after she had bent down to give Giles a kiss on the forehead, and Spike watched her go, hips swaying as she mounted the stairs. Angel, apparently uninterested in watching Spike watch his one-time forever girl, beat a retreat to the basement.

“Christ alive,” Spike murmured, once Buffy was gone. “Girl’s magnificent.”

Giles’ voice came cold and formal from behind her, not sounding nearly so drunk and friendly as he had acted before Buffy had vacated the room. “Sit down, Spike.”

Spike sat, and heard Dru’s voice in her head. _Good puppy_.

“I understand that you and Buffy have been — _dating_ for some few months now.”

“Depends on how you count. I’ve already gotten the shovel talk from everyone who loves her, Rupert, you can save it.”

Giles poured another glass of whiskey with slow, deliberate movements, then slid it across the table at her in a silent, dragging motion. He had turned on his ability to shift from a mild-mannered librarian into someone who had once dabbled in the dark arts. It was a performance clearly designed to intimidate, and if Spike had been some dickless little high school boy, she might have quailed. Then again, Giles wasn’t exactly any old middle-aged dad carting a shotgun. She had no doubt he was good enough to put a stake in a vampire. Just, well, not Bloody Will.

“If this is poisoned, better be something good.”

The Watcher didn’t dignify that with a reply, just raised his own glass to his lips and stared wordlessly at her over the rim of it.

Well, she could be silent with the best of them. She slumped back in her chair, knees akimbo, and met his eyes without speaking, her fingers drumming at the side of her glass. She had to give this to the man — she’d never been fixed with a better stay-away-from-my-daughter stare, and she’d been on the receiving end of Joyce Summers’ merry axework.

Finally, the man opened his mouth. “If I thought that a threat would get through to you, I would certainly make one, Spike, but I think your arrogance would prevent it from being entirely effective.”

Spike took a sarcastic, seated half-bow. “Ta.”

“Therefore, I will not tell you that if you make me regret my present lenience I will make you beg for the sunlight.” She was unable to help a wide smile at that. That was a good one, she’d have to use that one. Not threatening you but still threatening you. He had a hard, sharp look in his eye behind his glasses that completed the picture. It was so hard not to like him sometimes that Spike occasionally forgot to bother putting in the effort. “Even living in England I am only half a day away by plane. Less if I call upon my friends.”

“If you’re not threatening me, I won’t threaten you either. Bit of honor amongst thieves. But I will give you a bit of advice, if you don’t mind.” There was a flicker of darkness in Giles’ eyes and a slight whiteness in his knuckles around the glass in his hand. She continued as if she hadn’t seen it. “Girls could use you back. They’re having a hard go of it. I can keep ‘em in distractions, keep guard on them, but I’m not exactly a father figure.”

“That’s understating it. But with all due respect,” Giles said, in a tone that implied that the respect due was _none_ , “I don’t believe it’s your business.”

“My girl, my business.”

“I’m aware that you believe you’re in love with her, Spike. But that does not actually give you the right to meddle in all her personal affairs, regardless of whether she believes it as well.”

Spike bristled. “If I were _meddling_ you’d be chained up in the basement until I got your signature in blood on a contract, Watcher.”

“Ah, I see we’ve reverted to threats.”

She imagined Buffy’s hand on her shoulder holding her back and took a deep breath, rolling her shoulders and bolting back the rest of her drink. “Look. I don’t give a damn if you believe I love her or not. Believe that I’ll be dust before anything happens to her, you have my word on that. Trying to tell you, Rupes, girl doesn’t _need_ you, but she wants you. Loves you. And you love her. And if you get on that plane on Sunday and don’t come back it won’t be me hurting her.”

To her surprise, that got a sigh. “I know.”

“Then what the hell are you doing?”

“Muddling through, as usual. I have clearly done something wrong, as Buffy is — _attached_ to another vampire, this time without the mitigating factors.”

“Chip doesn’t sub in for a soul in your mind, huh?”

“Does it in yours?”

“Far’s my life goes, no. Far’s mitigating factors — you know, I can hurt Buffy. Since she came back. Chip doesn’t think she’s human.”

Giles sat up straight. “When, precisely, was she intending to tell me that?”

“Don’t ask me. Point is, Watcher, I haven’t. In fact, I’ve been picking up some bloody pieces. Some of which you left.”

“Yes, you’ve made your point.”

“So, you coming back?”

“We’ll see. Rest assured that if I do, it will have very little to do with you.”

Buffy wasn’t waiting in her room, but rather in the outside hallway, arms crossed over her chest. “So, what did he want?”

She tried to make putting a hand on the small of Buffy’s back to guide her inside look casual. “Bit of a translation assist. Hard to find demon language speakers who’ll play ball.”

“Uh huh. And totally not to give you the dad talk about what he’ll do if you hurt me.”

“Nope. No threats, we agreed up front. Parley rules.”

“Uh huh. So…” Buffy turned back to her the second the door closed behind her, backing up to sit on the bed. “Cecily.”

Spike winced. “Was hoping you’d forget about that.”

“Nope,” Buffy said, popping the “p”. “And I really want you to kiss me, so get talking.”

That was as good an incentive as any. Spike leaned back against the door, crossing her arms over her chest. “All right, all right. Recognized her the first time she came around, at your birthday. Neither of us really wanted to talk to you lot about it, so we mutually pretended it hadn’t happened. It’s not like I’ve been rhapsodizing about her eyes since then. Since 1880, actually.”

“But she’s Cecily. Like, _the_ Cecily.”

“That one, yeah.”

“She was a _demon_.”

“’s not like I knew that at the time.”

“Not until — ”

“Yeah.”

“And then you just thought — ”

“Better keep my mouth shut.”

“Because — “

“Because it’s bloody embarrassing, Buffy. Don’t think I’ve ever impressed on you exactly how hard she dumped me. I don’t want to relive it.”

There was silence. Buffy fidgeted, her fingers playing with the covers of the bed. Finally, she looked back up at Spike. “You know, I was imagining her way prettier.”

Spike grimaced, thinking of the face that Halfrek generally wore around Anya. It wasn’t that she didn’t go in for demons or anything, but vengeance demons really did have a whole — trench face thing going on. “You and me both, kitten.”

Buffy blinked at her for a moment and then put her face in her hands and started giggling. “Oh, god, that went so badly. Everybody fighting and getting drunk and — oh, Tara’s going to feel so bad about that silencing spell. And you and Angel _chasing squirrels_ — ”

“Didn’t actually. Anyway, only one person got stabbed and there was only one ill-advised hookup,” Spike pointed out. “I didn’t get shot and Harris didn’t get syphilis. No bears. Really, wasn’t so bad.”

“Someone got _stabbed_?”

She held up her bandaged hand. “Me, don’t worry.”

Buffy looked at her like she was insane. It was a look Spike was well used to. “Yeah, funnily enough, that does _not_ make me feel better.”

“Can I kiss you now?”

Buffy’s eyes flicked up at her, gazing through her eyelashes while she fixed Spike with a considering look. Then she did that devastating thing where she bit her lip before she answered, looking unbearably shy for someone who was an absolute hellcat in bed. “…uh huh.”

Spike pushed off the door and ambled towards the bed, going to her knees beside it and reaching up to undo Buffy’s crucifix necklace. She tossed it over her shoulder before it could burn her, and Buffy rolled her eyes.

“You — ”

Spike cut her off by tugging her into a kiss, hands coming to either side of her neck, thumbs stroking the hot veins hiding just under the skin there. She tasted like whiskey and apple pie. Quintessentially American. Spike smiled into her mouth. When she drew back, Buffy’s eyes were bright, her lips swollen and lipstick smudged, and she was smiling too.

“Really do look beautiful tonight, love.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself. I like blue on you.”

Spike reached down to undo the ankle strap of Buffy’s left heel, and slipped it off her foot. “Think I’d call you an angel a lot more often if it weren’t for your wanker ex. Really do look like one, all done up like this. Practically had a religious experience for the first time in a century seeing you come down the stairs all glittering.” She rubbed her thumb up the bone at the front of Buffy’s foot as she went to work on the second shoe.

“So, what, my lipstick all over your face is a blessing?”

“Think I prefer the word consecration.”

“Concentration?”

“Con _secr_ ation, pet, means making a thing sacred.”

“I’m pretty sure you’d burst into flames if you entered a church.”

Spike grinned at her. “Nah, but I’d feel a bit like someone was watching me.” She put a hand out to stop Buffy when she reached for the zipper of the dress. “Keep it on a little while. Can take your hair down, though.”

Curling slightly from having been packed into the bun, Buffy’s hair tumbled around her shoulders, gold barely brushing the silver neckline of her dress.

“That’s it,” Spike whispered to her, keeping her voice low to create a reverent space between them. “There’s a love. God, Buffy, look at you. Could dust just here on my knees before you and I’d do it happy.”

Buffy’s cheeks went pink as Spike reached up to stroke her lower lip, red coming away on the ball of her finger. “Thanksgiving is so _not_ a sexy holiday, Spike.”

“Every holiday’s sexy if you have sex on it, love.”

A giggle. Spike leaned up to kiss her again, and knew she was probably going to wind up with lipstick all over her face. “You,” Buffy told her, tapping her on the nose with her index finger, “Won’t let me get undressed, so Thanksgiving remains, alas, very unsexy.”

“Haven’t taught you near enough if you think we can’t have sex past this flimsy little thing.”

“What were you thinking?”

“Thinking I’d put my head up your skirt. Always wanted to. Maybe one of those little ones you used to wear. If I’d’ve been yours then I’d’ve been losing my soul every week.” She paused, and ran her hands up the outsides of Buffy’s thighs. “Well, still probably would now if a good shag’d shake it loose.”

The green eyes glittered with mischief, and Buffy grabbed her hands and guided them to her waist. “Are you saying we only have good sex once a week?”

“I’d say the sex is good at least once a day and earth-shattering a couple of times a week.”

“Spectacular?”

Spike grinned at her, and then bent to kiss the inside of her knee. “Yes, you are.”

**Author's Note:**

> please come rp spuffy with me on omegle, i will write you a starter


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